Got out on my own today starting just after 1 pm. There were around 8 or 9 rigs in the parking lot - likely people who took an extra day off after the Columbus Day weekend. The water level here is low. Launching is easy at the State Launch, but reportedly difficult elsewhere.
I fished until around 5:45 pm today, so I put in a long half-day so to speak. I keep trying areas that I think should have fish, but have generally disappointed me, and that's what I did with my first hour. I caught one rockbass. I also marked a ton of lake trout, but they did not seem very aggressive. I made a run south and fished some of my go-to areas. I caught a surprising number of rockbass, and some smallmouths. The smallmouths I caught were in the upper part of the average size range for Skaneateles Lake bass - they averaged 14" to 16". I had maybe a half-dozen of those. Absent were the numerous 9" to 13" bass that typically make up 75% of the catch or more. I did not encounter any trout, salmon, perch or walleyes today. Water temperature was still 63 degrees on top. Once things get into the 50s, we'll hopefully see some rainbows and perch. Low-50s bring up the lake trout. Rock bass also tend to go deep once temps drop into the low-50s/upper-40s. Overall fishing wasn't bad, but was slower than last week when I caught a lot more bass and a couple of walleyes.
For what it's worth, fall foliage is probably a week before peak. It already looks great, but there's still a lot of green mid-lake and on the northern part of the lake. The next couple of days will feature some north winds and colder temperatures. I am open for trips Thursday (tomorrow), Sunday, next Thursday through Sunday the 26th and from the 29th through the 31st. I expect to see some good to excellent fishing here on Skaneateles Lake during that time-frame. We'll also be getting into much better water temperatures for northern pike on Owasco and perhaps Seneca Lake as well as for tiger muskies on Otisco Lake. Top-notch good to excellent lake trout action should be happening on Cayuga Lake, and Owasco Lake usually fishes well for lakers, bass and pike during late-October.
Looks like the bugs are all taken care of on this website. The load times are much better than before and my web support figured out what was causing occasional error messages. We should be good to go for a long time and I will be keeping this site updated so it runs at a top-notch level throughout the future.